The
Louisville WBB team nearly played that perfect game that Jeff has been talking
about for some weeks. There were a few defensive lapses in the first few
minutes of the game that led to four easy baskets for Iowa, and the reserves
made a few miscues at the end, but otherwise it was the best game of the
season. Only the game at Ball State might have been played more nearly perfect,
but the competition and the significance of this game was much greater than the
Ball State game.
It
was a tough night for Sara Hammond who could not seem to do anything right, and
Asia was limited by foul trouble. The officials called the game extremely
close.
Later
last night I saw HBO Real Sports with
Bryant Gumbel and their feature on the Schimmel sisters. I am going to try to
offer a short review of that. I know something about the subject. I was a
professor of Anthropology and American Indian Studies at the University of
Washington for 25 years, and I was a head BB coach at the Navajo Academy for 5
years. I played in Rez ball tournaments for over 20 years in the Southwest, and
my son played in many Rez ball tournaments in the Northwest more recently. I
had many students from the Umatilla reservation and have taken classes there on
field trips. It is not the place these films make it out to be.
The reservation is an absolutely beautiful place of
over 200,000 acres. It is not a cesspool of abject poverty that people want to
escape. Since the Wildhorse Casino, motel and related businesses were created,
jobs and income have been reasonably good for most tribal members. They have a
beautiful multimillion dollar tribal museum that tells their history, language
and culture. They have lots of recreation facilities. Housing is modest but
good, and life there is comfortable and friendly.
Leaving the Rez is not such a challenge because life
there is so bad but more because it is so good. While there are problems there
as there are problems everywhere, it is not the ugly place of despair and abject
poverty the films made by non-Indians want to portray it to be. But the journey
off the rez that Shoni and Jude took, nevertheless, involved a big challenge and
represented a huge leap of faith for Shoni and Jude. The journey involved
leaving a beautiful place, a rich traditional culture and and all their
relatives and friends to go 2,000 miles away to a big city university and try to
succeed in the rigors and demands of higher education and try to compete at the
highest level of college athletics. Native Americans understand the
difficulties and hazards of this journey and appreciate what Shoni and Jude have
done and take inspiration from it. These film makers are putting their own spin
on it and much of that spin is inaccurate.
Also, a lot of non-Indians seem to think Shoni and
Jude are big because Native Americans do not have any other big time sports
heroes. That is not true. Recent Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford is NA from
Oklahoma, and he was the first overall pick in the NFL draft. And Jacoby
Ellsbury from the Warm Springs Rez near Shoni’s led Oregon State to the College
World Series championship, and was a prominent part of the Boston Red Sox’s two
World Series championships in the last 7 years. Notah Begay, a teammate and
close friend of Tiger Woods, won two tournaments and was rookie of the year of
the PGA tour before his golf career was cut short because of an injury to his
back. All of these athletes have appeared at Native American events and given
free clinics in Native American communities.
Angel Goodrich led 12 seed Kansas to two big upsets
in last year’s NCAA tournament, and she made it to the sweet 16. She is Native
American from Oklahoma and has appeared with Jude at many events. She beat out
Skylar Diggins for Tulsa’s starting point guard position in the WNBA last
season.
So why are Shoni and Jude so big among Native
Americans? I think there are several reasons. One is they play Rez ball and
are proud of it, and basketball is really big on reservations and even in urban
Indian communities. Golf, football and baseball are not as big as basketball in
contemporary NA culture. In Arizona 25,000 Navajos will travel over 200 miles
to watch their girls basketball teams compete for and usually win the state 3A
championship. Boys teams also attract big crowds, but the girls teams get just
as big or bigger crowds. Two high schools on the Rez have field houses that
seat 5500 and 7500 respectively and they fill them up. A new high school gym on
the Navajo reservation is now under construction that will seat over 10,000.
These are better facilities than most college teams play in.
Shoni and Jude’s popularity also involves who they
are and how they conduct themselves and how they respect and embrace the
communities from which they came and with which they identify.
Their popularity also took a big jump after the
Baylor upset. The NCAA tournament is a unique sporting event, and it captures
the interest and imagination of people all across the country.
For Native Americans, Shoni’s shot over Griner was a
symbolic victory over all the adverse giants that have besieged and overrun
their lands and nations over the last 500 years. The only equivalent of that is
the victory in college football of the Carlisle Indian School over the Cadets of
Army in 1913. That Army team included future WW II generals Patton, Bradley and
Eisenhower.
I think the Schimmels are also big because they are
a sister act and have different personalities and styles. There is something
there with which everyone can identify.
It is also important to Native Americans how the
University of Louisville and its supporters have embraced and appreciated the
Schimmels. As a result, it is not just Shoni and Jude that Native Americans
support, but it is the whole team they have adopted and support.
Gary Witherspoon, Professor Emeritus
Anthropology and American Indian
Studies
The University of Washington
Hey Gary, thank you for sharing your views on Umatilla. You captured what we are here. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteGreat take Gary! Enjoyed the piece. Send Paulie more contributions. And...now I know why you left my pickem stats out, Paulie. Gaining on you. LOL.
ReplyDeletethe real Joe Hill
Joe...I have 12 teams of the 16 still dancing. You have 11. I like my chances. Blue Lou, Curtis F.and Kenny S. have 13 remaining, though. It is there that the danger lies.
DeleteBest of luck all
Paulie
Umatilla Rez is like Disney Land compared to most reservations, we do have a lot going economically, we are doing good and we're searching for ways to break away from just making money off the casino. Myself, I can't leave because the tribe gives me a great job here at Tamastslikt/museum, low cost tribal housing gives me a good place to live, everything is so close to each other, the mountains which I love are with in half hour away, its comfortable, its hard to leave, though I did it for US Navy, they told me the rez will always be here and GO, LEAVE I did only bc my mom was so proud of me, I'm thankful for the experience. We got it all, but one thing is the big leaders of our tribe always stress education but wont build our Nixyaawii Community School, a real school as they say, a building, currently they are housed in a modular--google it. Our basketball court, the one you see shown in the documentary's isn't a regulation sized court, small, a lot of ppl step out of bounds trying to shoot base line 3's, our gym is TINY! We have about 6 rows of bleachers, and the floor is concrete, but we got heat and a roof so I guess we're good lol. I grew up in a time when we had nothing, I lived in poverty at a time when there was no casino so I'm thankful we have something for our youth. So really we don't have it all, our 9-12 grade kids are housed in a modular, our gym is tiny where its always standing room only lol. Any donations??? ;-) ---Umatilla23
ReplyDelete